The earliest documented use of asphalt for road building was in 625 B.C. in the Babylonian Empire. Fast-forward to more modern times, in Europe, the first documented asphalt pavements were constructed in the 1830s. In the United States, we have been paving with asphalt since the 1870s. Thus, we are rapidly moving towards our second century of paving asphalt roads that
resembles today’s pavements.
From ancient times until the 1920s pavement structures were based on experience. Stone-paved streets originating 6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), were later followed by the Romans constucting more elaborte stone paved roads with thick crushed base laters for drainage.
AAPA Chair Lance Lamberth recently presented ArDOT Director Lorie Tudor with a coveted 2019 APA Perpetual Pavement Award for a US Highway 79 project in Jefferson County.
Registration for the FREE Two Decades of Positive Thinlay Performance at the NCAT Pavement Test Track webinar that will be conducted by Dr. R. Buzz Powell, P.E., Associate Director & Research Professor, National Center for Asphalt Technology, is now open. The webinar is scheduled for January 21, 2021, 3:00 - 4:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada).
The Perpetual Pavement Award is an excellent opportunity to highlight asphalt's long-life characteristics. The award honors state and local agencies that have had the foresight to design and build asphalt pavements which have long life, are cost-effective, and provide the comfort and convenience that the traveling public expects.
The APA invites you to submit an entry for the 2020 Perpetual Pavement Award. Applications will be reviewed by engineers at the National Center for Technology (NCAT). The deadline for nominations is December 1, 2020. Winners will be announced in the first quarter of 2021.
The third and final video fo the Asphalt Pavement Principles series has just been posted to FHWA's YouTube channel. Long-Life Pavements, traditionally called Perpetual Pavements, are multi-layer pavement designs built from the bottom up, with each layer engineered to maximize pavement life. Long-Life Pavement designs provide agencies with an approach that reduces the life-cycle costs of a pavement. With this approach, asphalt roads can be built with a structure that lasts many decades with only periodic surface renewal and maintenance required, making it an ideal choice for drivers, engineers, and the traveling public.